Opening CeremonyAward Winners, Gems & Premieres

29.05.2018 - 19:30,
Gartenbaukino
90 min.

Singing fish. Selfies with Air Force One. Stunts on the outskirts of a city. Once the fifteenth edition of VIS kicks into gear, hold on to your seats, because our mix of award winners, gems, and premieres has its gaze locked on both our crystal anniversary and our focus theme We Need To Disagree. Becoming walled off and crossing boundaries, poverty and promises of salvation, flight and might—using the power of cinema, these opposite pairs are a fertile ground for satirical analyses of current affairs and subtle social criticism: from ironic classics and three extraordinary award winners to some intense miniatures. (de)

Trailer VIS 2018

PT
2018
01 min
30 sec
DirectorDiogo Costa Amarante

shaping democracy

DEAT
2018
01 min
57 sec
DirectorVolker Schreiner

2018 marks the 100th anniversary of the Republic of Austria. On this occasion, the festival presents the audiovisual exhibition shaping democracy – the republic in 24 frames per century, featuring 24 contemporary short films, at MuseumsQuartier Vienna. We invited the video artist Volker Schreiner to make an exhibition trailer using footage from these films—and with a great sense of the fundamental threads and paradoxes, he whipped up a perfect supercut. (de)

Österreich rein!

Austria First!

AT
2000
01 min
45 sec
DirectorAmina Handke

You won’t see much of Austria in this film: Vertical excerpts in short chapters—all designed in the style of the official television ads for the country—bear witness to a very narrow worldview. In their characteristic design these satirical statements criticize political strategies that foreground national pride. A pointed resistance film by Amina Handke, shot in the early 2000s: We need to disagree! (de)

Sound Bernard Herrmann, Amina Handke
Animation Amina Handke

Jury Award - Diagonale

Roadside Attraction

Palm Beach International Airport has become an attraction ever since President Donald Trump started using it as a parking space for Air Force One on his regular trips to Mar-a-Lago. Countless cars stop by the roadside, onlookers try to snap a photo or a selfie with this symbol of power in the background. Bresnan and Lucas, who have been doubly successful at VIS 2017 with The Rabbit Hunt, leave us baffled with this subtle observation of a weird spectacle. (de)

Min Börda

The Burden

SE
2017
14 min
15 sec
DirectorNiki Lindroth von Bahr

The Burden is as surprising as it is funny, as sonically relishing as it is intelligent. The most astonishing thing about it: It’s a stop-motion puppet musical! The protagonists: anthropomorphic animals telling audiences about their worlds, singing in canon, and tap-dancing. Their depressing reality as hotel, call-center, supermarket, or diner employees oscillates between isolated reclusion, grandiose dreams, and neoliberal promises of salvation. (wp)

Best Animated Film - Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival, Best Animated Short - Annecy International Animation Film Festival, Best Short Film - TIFF – Toronto International Film Festival, Best Film - Fantoche, Best Animated Film - Curtas Vila do Conde

Gewinnerfilm "Keep It Short"

AT
2018
01 min
Director

One minute, no sound. This was the only specification for the competition Keep It Short, which looked for film treatments set on the premises of Vienna’s former Südbahnhof, the city’s largest railway station. All submissions were reviewed by a jury, who then chose five ideas. The five directors received a production budget to realize their idea in the urban cityscape of what is now the Erste Campus. We will show the film that the jury eventually selected. (jf/de)

Commissioned by ERSTE Group & Vienna Shorts Agentur

Fest

A block party on the outskirts of a city. Rave music and sausages, babies and a drone—it’s all there, we’re all set. And then someone tries a reckless stunt, one that some like to do in some parts of this world, directly off the roof of the high-rise, without considering the consequences. Shooting star Nikita Diakur, whose film Ugly is part of this year’s competition, simulates and animates motions that have been captured and posted on YouTube multiple times as well as the run-down urban environment with great passion for defects and imperfections. (de)

Sound David Kamp

The Men Behind the Wall

IL
2018
28 min
Austrian premiere
DirectorInes Moldavsky

Tinder. Woman seeks men. It could be so easy—if only she weren’t from Israel and the men in her area from the West Bank. Awarded a Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, Ines Moldavsky has made herself the subject of her investigation. She crosses boundaries and starts conversations by phone or in person. A powerful film about needs, lust and fantasies, possibilities and impossibilities, gender roles, the “other” and how to deal with it. (mmh/de)

Where Do We Go

An outward gaze, and trains, tracks, stations, and clouds zoom by. Landscapes are close, then far away again—the music sets the tone, the rhythm sets the pace. But where are we going? Against the backdrop of global refugee movements, this question has gained new dimensions and urgency. Taking several Lomo series as source materials, Fruhauf turns Jörg Mikula’s virtuosic drum solos into a veritable tempest of images. (av)